Exam Objectives and Commonly Referenced Documentation for FlashBlade Storage Professional Certification

Certifications
Audience
Public
Product
FlashBlade
FlashArray
FlashStack
Evergreen
Pure1
Portworx
Source Type
Documentation

The following tables list the FlashBlade Storage Professional exam objectives and how these objectives align to the corresponding commonly referenced product documentation and resources. Candidates are encouraged to review the applicable topics as part of their preparation for the exam.

Exam Domain 1: Array Administration (Weightage 20%)

Exam Objectives

Applicable Documentation and Resources

1.01 - Storage Admin

Objective Subtopics:

  • Describe Fusion Fleet concepts including creating, joining, and leaving the fleet

  • Describe what Servers provide to FlashBlade data path

  • Create and manage maintenance windows for FlashBlade systems

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • Servers (See Ch. 5)

    • Secure Communication in Arrays (See Ch. 12)

    • Remote Resource Management (See Ch. 12)

  2. Generate a Single-Use Fleet Key

  3. Everpure Fusion Quick Start Guide

  4. Everpure Fusion FAQ

  5. FlashBlade Multi-tenancy Overview

1.02 - Management User: Security and Authentication

Objective Subtopics:

  • Understand and configure identity services for FlashBlade administration

  • Describe pre-defined roles and the authorization they provide

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • Local Users (See Ch. 11)

    • Group to Role Mapping (See Ch. 11)

    • Adding Role Mapping (See Ch. 13)

    • Array Management Directory Service (See Ch. 13)

    • Enabling

    • Computer Account Naming and Credentials (See Ch. 13)

  2. FlashBlade RBAC Configuration

  3. Purity//FB 4.5 SAML Channel Security Best Practices

1.03 - Network Configuration

Objective Subtopics:

  • Explain and configure networking with FlashBlade

  • Be able to identify best practices for network configuration

  1. SMTP over TLS

  2. FlashBlade//S Best Practices for GDS

  3. FlashBlade NTP Support

  4. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6 (See Ch. 11 Adding and Removing Port to and frm a Link Aggregation)

  5. Outgoing Ports to Customer Network

1.04 - Rest API and Fleet Management

Objective Subtopics:

  • Understand the FlashBlade REST API and how to access with an authenticated token

  • Maintain authenticated principals and permissions

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • API Tokens (See Ch. 11)

    • API Clients (See Ch. 11)

    • Displaying an API Token (See Ch. 11)

    • Purity//FB Overview (See Ch. 2)

  2. FlashBlade REST API FAQ (See "Other REST API Clients for FlashBlade")

  3. FlashBlade REST API FAQ

1.05 - FB Architecture

Objective Subtopics:

  • Understand and describe the FlashBlade architecture

  • Explain the various components in a FlashBlade including Blades, DFMs, XFMs, & FIOMs

  • Understand the different FlashBlade models and differences between them

  • Describe the benefits of one model over another

  • Understand the benefits of Zero Move Tiering

  1. FlashBlade//S FAQs

  2. The Purity//FB Architecture

  3. FlashBlade Zero-Move Tiering

  4. Introduction to Zero Move Tiering for FlashBlade

  5. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

  6. The Purity//FB Architecture (See page 3)

Exam Domain 2: Protocol Administration (Weightage: 30%)

Exam Objectives

Applicable Documentation and Resources

2.01 - NFS

Objective Subtopics:

  • Describe how to configure FlashBlade for NFS access

  • Understand NFS features and how they can be configured/enabled in FlashBlade

  • Understand the benefits of RapidFile Toolkit

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • WORM File Systems (See Ch. 5)

    • Netgroups (See Ch. 8)

    • Creating and Exporting a File System (See Ch. 5)

    • Fast Remove (See Ch. 5)

    • NFS Export Policies (See Ch. 8)

    • NFS Export Rules (See Ch. 8)

  2. FlashBlade NFS FAQ

  3. RapidFile Toolkit v2.1 for FlashBlade

2.02 - SMB

Objective Subtopics:

  • Be able to describe how to configure FlashBlade for SMB access

  • Understand SMB features and how they can be configured/enabled in FlashBlade

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • SMB Client and Share Policies (See Ch. 8)

    • SMB Share Policies (See Ch. 8)

    • Audit Policies (See Ch. 8)

    • SMB Encryption (See Ch. 8)

    • ACL Safeguarding (See Ch. 5)

  2. FlashBlade Best Practices for Native SMB

  3. FlashBlade Non-Disruptive Upgrade (NDU) Information (See "Protocol Behavior During HA Events")

2.03 - S3

Objective Subtopics:

  • Configure a FlashBlade for object storage (S3) usage

  • Understand the fundamentals of the S3 protocol

  • Describe background processing such as lifecycle policies

  1. FlashBlade CLI Reference 4.5.6

    • Creating and Deleting Accounts (See Ch. 4)

    • pureobj (See Ch. 4)

  2. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • Buckets (See Ch. 5)

    • Access Keys (See Ch. 5)

    • Bucket Versioning (See Ch. 5)

    • Object Lifecycle Configuration Rules (See Ch. 5)

  3. Connecting to FlashBlade Object Store from an S3 Client

  4. FlashBlade S3 Performance FAQ

  5. Incoming Ports to FlashBlade

2.04 - Data Access: Security and Authentication

Objective Subtopics:

  • Configure identity services for management access and permissions via roles

  • Configure identity services for data path access

  • Configure IdP configuration for S3 access

  • Understand how FlashBlade Servers define & relate to identity services

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • Choosing an Active Directory Account or Directory Services Configuration (See Ch. 13)

    • Single Sign-On (See Ch. 11)

    • Creating a TLS Policy (See Ch. 8)

    • Configuring the NFS Directory Service with LDAP (See Ch. 13)

    • Access Control Styles (See Ch. 5)

    • External Certificates (See Ch. 11)

    • Creating an Active Directory Account (See Ch. 13)

  2. TLS Support

  3. FlashBlade Multi-tenancy Overview

Exam Domain 3: Monitoring (Weightage: 10%)

Exam Objectives

Applicable Documentation and Resources

3.01 - Pure1 Manage and Assessments

Objective Subtopics:

  • Recognize performance and capacity patterns Infer impact from performance charts

  1. Pure1 Manage - Assessment

  2. Pure1 Manage - Reporting

  3. Single Sign-On (SSO) Integration FAQ (See "Can both AD and Pure Login methods be used at the same time?")

  4. Appliance Display Controls

  5. Array Load Statistics Quick Reference Guide

  6. User Roles

3.02 - On-box Performance and Capacity Reporting

Objective Subtopics:

  • Recognize available reports

  • Interpret data from command output

  • Understand performance and capacity trends

  • Manage space utilization (including managing shared space for metadata)

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • Identifying the Most Active File Systems (See Ch. 9)

    • SNMP and Syslog Server (See Ch. 11)

    • Note about the Performance Charts (See Ch. 4)

    • Destroyed File Systems Panel (See Ch. 5)

  2. FlashBlade CLI Reference 4.5.6

    • purearray list, Example 8 (See Ch. 4)

    • Viewing File System Performance (See Ch. 4)

Exam Domain 4: Cyber Resilience (Weightage: 20%)

Exam Objectives

Applicable Documentation and Resources

4.01 - Snapshots

Objective Subtopics:

  • Create, manage, and recover File snapshots

  • Configure and maintain snapshot policies

  • Enable object versioning (S3)

  1. FlashBlade SafeMode

  2. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • File System Snapshots (See Ch. 5)

  3. FlashBlade User Guide Version 4.5.0

    • Viewing Snapshot Policy Details (See Ch. 8)

  4. FlashBlade CLI Reference 4.5.6

    • Bucket Versioning (See Ch. 4)

    • Creating File System Snapshots (See Ch. 4)

  5. FlashBlade CLI Reference 4.5.0

    • purebucket (See Ch. 4)

4.02 - Data Resilience

Objective Subtopics:

  • Analyze capacity implications of SafeMode

  • Explain SafeMode functionality

  • Understand procedure for modify/disable SafeMode

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • WORM File Systems (See Ch. 5)

    • File System WORM Policies (See Ch. 8)

    • Bucket Security (See Ch. 5)

    • Object Lock (See Ch. 5)

    • Eradicating File System Snapshots (See Ch. 6)

  2. SafeMode for FlashBlade Files (See "Enabling SafeMode for FlashBlade Files")

  3. FlashBlade SafeMode FAQ

    • See "What Does FlashBlade® SafeMode™ Do?"

    • See "With extra snapshots will the FlashBlade need more capacity?"

4.03 - File Replication

Objective Subtopics:

  • Configure file replication

  • Manipulate replication schedules based on RPO and RTO

  • Connect management and replication network

  • Perform replication failover and failback

  • Differentiate fan-in and fan-out replication

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • Connecting Arrays (See Ch. 5)

    • Editing a Connected Array and Disconnecting a Connected Array (See Ch. 5)

    • File System Replication Setup (See Ch. 7)

    • Connecting the Source and Target Arrays (See Ch. 7)

    • File Replication Failover, Reprotect, and Failback (See Ch. 5)

    • File System Replication Overview (See Ch. 7)

  2. File System Replication Overview

4.04 - Object Replication

Objective Subtopics:

  • Configure object replication for active-passive and active-active use cases

  • Connect management and replication network

  • Differentiate fan-in, fan-out, cascading

  1. FlashBlade Object Replication FAQ

  2. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • Creating Remote Credentials (See Ch. 6)

    • Object Lifecycle Configuration Rules (See Ch. 5)

  3. Active-Active Object Replication Deployment Guide

  4. FlashBlade S3 Performance FAQ (See "Does enabling replication impact FlashBlade S3 Performance?")

4.05 - Erasure Coding and Encryption

Objective Subtopics:

  • Calculate capacity overhead from parity

  • Describe high availability resiliency requirements

  • Demonstrate when the data is encrypted

  • Describe what data is encrypted

  • Understand how data encryption protects against data breach

  1. The Purity//FB Architecture (See "Access to Data Stored on DFMS")

  2. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • Rapid Data Locking (See Ch. 11)

Exam Domain 5: Troubleshooting (Weightage: 20%)

Exam Objectives

Applicable Documentation and Resources

5.01 - Performance and Capacity Issues

Objective Subtopics:

  • Recognize and resolve a performance bottleneck (include replication)

  • Describe impact of user quotas

  • Identify capacity and performance anomalies

  • Interpret capacity changes Identify hardware failures

  • Perform health checks

  • Using performance tools such as iperf or iometer

  • Understand the correlation between workload and latency

  1. FlashBlade Always-on QoS FAQ

  2. FlashBlade//E Technical Specifications

  3. FlashBlade SMB Performance FAQ

  4. FlashBlade Site Planning Guide

  5. FlashBlade//S FAQs

5.02 - Connectivity

Objective Subtopics:

  • Resolve performance bottleneck at physical network port, at TCP layer, and authority layer

  • Explain how load balance works on FB (lag, mount point, blade, and authority)

  1. FlashBlade Best Practices for Networking

  2. The Purity//FB Architecture

  3. Incoming Ports to FlashBlade

  4. FlashBlade CLI Reference 4.5.6

    • Running Ping and Traceroute Tests (See Ch. 4)

  5. FlashBlade™ Site Planning Guide

  6. FlashBlade//S Technical Specifications

5.03 - Data Access

Objective Subtopics:

  • Manage user permissions

  • Apply NFS POSIX bits, SMB ACLs, and NFS 4.1 ACLs

  • Troubleshoot S3 Troubleshoot LDAP/ AD Servers

  • Test share/ Bucket access

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • File System Usage Limits (See Ch. 5)

  2. FlashBlade//S FAQs

  3. How to Join FlashBlade to Active Directory in Native SMB (See "How to Verify Active Directory Account via CLI")

  4. The Purity//FB Architecture (See "Client Connection Distribution")

  5. Load balancers for FlashBlade S3 Solution Guide

5.04 - How to Use Alerts

Objective Subtopics:

  • Interpret alert output

  • Solve issues using alerts

  1. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • Maintenance Window (See Ch. 11)

    • Alerts (See Ch. 10)

    • Health - Alerts Page (See Ch. 10)

  2. FlashBlade CLI Reference 4.5.6

    • purealert (See Ch. 4)

5.05 - Array state

Objective Subtopics:

  • Perform health checks

  • Identify failed hardware

  • Interpret hardware status

  • Understand phone home connectivity

  1. FlashBlade CLI Reference 4.5.6

    • Diagnostics (See Ch. 4)

    • Viewing blade information (See Ch. 4)

    • puredrive (See Ch. 4)

    • puresupport (See Ch. 4)

    • purehw (See Ch. 4)

  2. FlashBlade port(s) down or in a non-healthy state

  3. FlashBlade User Guide 4.5.6

    • Purity//FB GUI Navigation (See Ch. 3)